“He will be regarded as a benefactor of his race who shall teach man to confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome diet” (Thoreau, Walden, p. 190).

The following is a methodology for eating that I have been practicing for approximately four months now, with compelling results. I have never felt healthier or stronger, and I have never had a more natural relationship with food. As a former athlete, I have often struggled with limiting my caloric intake. I have tried a variety of restrictive diets, but the wheels tend to fall off within a few weeks. This new methodology, which I’ve dubbed The Simpletonic Diet, has helped me tremendously, although it is not a ‘diet’ in the traditional sense. Truthfully, ‘methodology for eating’ is a more apt term, as it is more focused on the ‘how’ of eating, as opposed to the ‘what.’

Moderation and exposure are two primary principles in any well-balanced lifestyle. The reason that most diets fail miserably for the vast majority of practitioners is that they do not utilize these two principles. If we absolutely limit ourselves to certain types of food and partake in unnatural, unsustainable ‘cheat days,’ our bodies will eventually revolt and we will fall back into previous habits of unhealthy eating. Alternatively, if we listen to our bodies and test out different food types to see what makes us feel good—both physically and mentally—then we develop a natural sense of comfort and understanding that allows us to regulate our eating habits with ease. For instance, if we crave a piece of chocolate, we should go ahead and have a piece of chocolate; we simply need to remember to moderate this snack by limiting the quantity and aiming for the healthiest option, such as dark chocolate. The Simpletonic Diet does not involve counting calories, counting macronutrients, eschewing certain food types, or weighing ourselves. It is a basic methodology that consists of experimentation, listening to our bodies, and coupling our healthy eating habits with a stout fitness regimen. Apart from practicing the principles of moderation and exposure, The Simpletonic Diet comprises three fundamental tenets, or goals: Physical Health, Mental Health, and Ethicality.

Physical Health

How do I eat so that I can get leaner, grow stronger and feel better? The answer is simple: Don’t worry about it. Learn to listen to your body and give it what it needs. When we make a focused effort to understand how we feel after eating certain foods at certain times in the day, our approach to eating healthy becomes a lot less complicated. For example, I know that I tend to have a sweet tooth after dinner, which is the worst possible time to have a sweet tooth. I also know that if I eat sugar in the middle of the day when I’m sitting at my desk, I feel foggy and tired. However, if I have some fruit (or even a chocolate chip muffin) in the morning as I’m moving about and walking to work, it makes me feel fantastic. My body soaks that sugar up and deploys it. Also, when I let myself eat like this in the morning, I find that my nightly sweet tooth is greatly diminished. The point is that I listened to how my body reacted to sugar, I realized that I have a natural craving for it, so I optimized the time of day when I should eat it. In this way, I limit my overall sugar intake and utilize the fuel instead of converting it to fat while I sleep. If I tried to eliminate sugar entirely from my diet, I would fail.

In addition to cultivating this natural understanding, it is helpful to remember the basic technical aspects of a hardy diet. We should aim to consume a high proportion of protein, fiber, and healthy fats. Recent studies (like this one and that one) have emphasized the importance of maintaining muscle mass when it comes to fighting pathological illnesses and improving the aging process; protein is an essential macronutrient in muscular development. Everyone knows how much the American Heart Association loves fiber. And healthy fats are all the rage these days. How do we enhance our intake of these things? Again, beans are great for both protein and fiber. Oats, fruits, and veggies are packed with fiber. If we feel the need for a bit of animal protein, we should make an effort to find foods that we find ethical. For me, that includes pasture-raised eggs and wild caught—or responsibly farmed—fish such as sardines, mackerel or Alaskan salmon. Healthy fats are also found in eggs and fish, in addition to nuts and seeds. Here’s an example day of Simpletonic eating (every item is organic, pasture raised, responsibly farmed or wild caught, where applicable):

• Breakfast: Rolled oats (fiber), peanut butter (healthy fats), whey protein
• Lunch: Vegetables (fiber), beans (protein and fiber), pasture-raised eggs (protein and healthy fats)
• Dinner: Vegetables (fiber), wild-caught mackerel (protein and healthy fats)
• Miscellaneous: Maybe a sugary snack in the morning, and a pre-/post-workout peanut butter and honey sandwich if I sense my body needs more energy

This diet makes me happy. I can eat as much of these things—all of which I find exceptionally delicious—as I want and I am able to maintain a lean, healthy physique. I also feel that I recover well from daily workouts (I will detail The Simpletonic Fitness Regimen in an upcoming post). As you can see, I don’t count calories, and try not to eliminate certain food types. If I want a bowl of ice cream, I have a bowl of ice cream; I simply limit how often I do this and I make an effort to do so on a high-activity day. If I find myself craving ice cream on a low-activity day, I ask myself, “do I really need the sugar and calories, or is this just a passing desire?” If I recognize that it is a passing desire and not a requirement, I am able to allow that sudden urge to fade. Or maybe I satisfy the urge with a less damaging piece of chocolate and move on. In the end, I don’t worry so much about what I eat, and I try to follow the basic principles above while eating foods that I enjoy, and my body thanks me. I’d again like to stress that the above menu is not strict by any means. It is only an example of a menu that works for me and fulfills my dietary needs in an ethical manner; it will look different for each of us. Lastly, I’d like to point out that my diet is very ‘natural’ in composition. By natural I mean that I avoid processed foods. Again, when it comes to diet I like to avoid specifics, so I will let you define what natural means to you. For me, it means that I don’t like big words and long lists on the ingredients label. I like to get my foods in their raw, simple form, and prepare them myself. People (like these blokes) talk about processed foods and cancer, but I simply appreciate the beauty of understanding the things that go into my body; I feel it is healthier and more delicious!  

Mental Health

Mental Health is the most important aspect of The Simpletonic Diet. It goes hand in hand with Physical Health, but I believe it requires further explanation. Firstly, we need to be aware that we eat to satisfy both mind and body. This is why the menu that I outlined above is really just a rough framework or foundation around which my diet pivots. As long as I have a solid, healthy foundation for my diet, I am able to be a bit rough around the edges. If I feel a sudden urge for sweets, I know that my basic foundation is sound and so I am comfortable having a light snack.

Secondly, I’d like to discuss cooking. Chögyam Trungpa put it nicely when he said “Dignity comes from using your inherent human resources, by doing things with your own bare hands—on the spot, properly and beautifully” (Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, p. 64). When we take the time to understand the ingredients and cook our meals, we eat better and become healthier. I believe this to be a fundamental truth. When I force myself to cook my meals, I tend to select healthier foods and I eat less. When I’ve spent 15–20 minutes preparing the vegetables, frying the eggs and adding the spices, it’s almost as if the quantity of food that I’m eating grows in my mind. It becomes naturally more satiating; I feel more connected to and appreciative of each bite. Alternatively, when we pay others to take care of our dirty work for us, when we outsource this fundamental human enterprise, we think less about what we eat. It becomes easier for us to overeat because we do not appreciate the effort that went into the creation of the meal. It becomes easier for us to eat unhealthy things because we are less aware of the ingredients and the preparation. Of course, I am not saying that we should never eat out or enjoy meals cooked by others, but I am saying that home cooking should be foundational in our diets.

Thirdly, I want to stress once more the importance of taking personal pride in what we eat. We simply must take an interest in ourselves and our diet if we want to be healthy. We must do our own research, and experiment. There is absolutely no one-size-fits-all approach to dieting. Each body and mind is singular and has different requirements. I’ll give you a personal example: intermittent fasting. This is essentially the idea that we should eat only during specific windows of the day. Maybe there’s a four- or eight-hour ‘feasting’ window, surrounded by a larger ‘fasting’ period where we eat nothing at all. I love intermittent fasting. When I force myself to wait until around 11:00 am or noon to break my morning fast, I feel more acute and present. I become more appreciative of my first meal, and I remain light on my feet all morning, which is when my mind is the most active and I am the most productive. However, I’m also an enormous morning person. I know many people who would feel awful if they tried this because the morning is already difficult enough for them. I learned of this method through internet research, and I discovered my love for it through experimentation. I have no background in nutritional science. I just took interest in my diet and lifestyle and found something that works well for me. I urge you to take a similar interest in your nutrition; it is highly rewarding.

Finally, I’d like briefly to discuss body image. Trying to force a certain body type is an imprudent endeavor. We tend not to realize how good we look. We notice our lack of bulging biceps or our narrow shoulders, and we think lowly of our bodies. However, we don’t apply nearly this same level of scrutiny to other people as we do to ourselves. If somebody is generally fit and stands with good posture, we immediately think they have a great body. We don’t compare them to fitness models like we do ourselves. There is inherent beauty in all body types and we should strive to emphasize that beauty through eating well and employing a sturdy fitness regimen. The rest will take care of itself, because all that matters is how we wear it: “When we feel healthy and wholesome ourselves, then we cannot help projecting that healthiness to others” (Chögyam Trungpa, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, p. 55).

Ethicality

Ethicality is the final tenet of The Simpletonic Diet. I do not like to force my own value system on my readers; instead, I urge you to consider and create your own system of ethics, whatever that may be. I feel strongly that our nourishment is one of the most complicated and important aspects of our lives, and that we should make an effort to contemplate the ethicality of what we eat. For some people, eating beef on a daily basis is natural and healthy; life is capricious and dangerous, and humans have been eating animals for ages—heck, we’ve got canine teeth designed for shredding meat—, so who am I to break the natural cycle? Furthermore, the beef industry is massive and I support thousands of farmers when I eat it. This is absolutely a respectable opinion since this person has thoroughly contemplated it and has decided that it fits into their own system of ethics. That is all I ask of my readers: think—and care—about what you eat! That is how I define ethicality. Faulkner put it best: “Every man is the arbiter of his own virtues” (The Sound and the Fury, p. 195). The following paragraphs can, therefore, be seen as a sort of appendix to The Simpletonic Diet, wherein I discuss my own dietary system of ethics.  

Though the term is tainted in the eyes of some, I believe strongly in the concept of sustainability. I define sustainability by asking myself, “could everybody in the world eat what I eat?” If the answer is “nope”, then I rethink my diet. The most common unsustainable food in the Western diet is beef. Seven and a half billion people could not eat a half-pound of beef every day. We would run out of the arable land and clean water needed to raise the cattle and the corn/grass they consume. Not to mention the deleterious effects of all the carbon dioxide and methane that is produced along the way. Generally speaking, meat, poultry, and dairy are the least sustainable foods, while fish are preferable and beans/legumes/veggies are the best. The more of these things I can pack into my diet, the better. Beans are particularly lovely because they are nitrogen fixers, meaning they essentially fertilize the soil in which they are grown, which makes them an important part of many farmers’ crop rotations. I could sit here and write down a list of the most sustainable foods, but that would defeat the purpose. Different people will prefer different foods, and there is a vast base of resources around the web that allow us to explore the sustainability of our diets—we just have to do the research for ourselves. As long as I can satisfy my conscience by answering the above question with a “yeah, I really think so,” and making an honest effort to actualize that statement, then I am moving in the right direction.

Secondly, apart from beans–good and beef–bad, I also like to eat ‘organic’—another buzzword. The USDA defines an item as organic if its contents are 95% or more certified organic, meaning free of synthetic additives like pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and dyes, and it is not processed using industrial solvents, irradiation, or genetic engineering. I feel strongly about organic food because I believe that we grow food not only for ourselves but for the vast web of insects and other animals—pests. “Do [my beans] not grow for woodchucks partly?” (Thoreau, Walden, p. 146). I am not going to cite any studies, but I sense that when we try to kill all the things that damage our crops, we do more harm to the complicated, interdependent web of life than we may realize. For example, what will happen when our pollinators die? I am happy to pay a tad more for my food if it means that we are allowing the woodchucks to take a few bites of beans here and there. (Quick side note: I eat a colorful, organic, delicious, 3,500-calorie, high-protein diet for about $10 per day. That’s less than $4,000 dollars annually. McDonald’s is, like, ridiculously expensive by comparison. So, I do think it’s possible for us to “pay more” for food.)

I also believe that the most ethical, sustainable diet is the vegetarian—or vegan—diet. It has a low environmental impact and I deem it more ethical than eating animals. This is my logic: we as omnivores have the ability to choose what we eat; knowing this, I try to choose foods that I am comfortable eating in large quantities. Putting a bolt through the head of a living, breathing animal with offspring around the corner is more unsettling than pulling a plant out of the ground and taking a bite. Some think this is foolish and illogical, but that’s just how I feel. Now, do I think that this way of eating is the healthiest? No. But can we be healthy and strong on such a diet? Certainly. Personally, I cannot call myself a vegetarian, but rather an ‘ethical eater.’ I thoroughly enjoy (and feel that I need) the occasional animal protein, so I try to consume it in the most sustainable way possible. If I eat eggs, they are organic and pasture raised. If I eat animals, I stick to responsibly farmed or wild caught fish. I generally eschew beef and pork. I do my research and eat accordingly. Easy as that. I am confident that my answer to the exigent question above is a firm “yes.”

In conclusion, The Simpletonic Diet is focused on making ourselves happy. We eat foods that make us feel good, but also healthy and strong. We don’t worry about eating a piece of chocolate since the foundation of our diet is so robust. We cook what we eat, and revel in the act of preparation and in understanding each ingredient. Lastly, we think about what we eat, and we make sure that we nourish ourselves in a way that satisfies our consciences. As George Harrison once sang, “Think for yourself!”